MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER
FOR THE 5th WORLD DAY FOR GRANDPARENTS AND THE ELDERLY 2025
[27 July 2025]
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Blessed are those who have not lost hope (cf. Sir
14:2)
Dear brothers and sisters,
The Jubilee we
are now celebrating helps us to realize that hope is a constant source of joy,
whatever our age. When that hope has also been tempered by fire over the course
of a long life, it proves a source of deep happiness.
Sacred Scripture offers us many examples of men and women
whom the Lord called late in life to play a part in his saving plan. We can
think of Abraham and Sarah, who, advanced in years, found it hard to believe
when God promised them a child. Their childlessness seemed to prevent them from
any hope for the future.
Zechariah’s reaction to the news of John the Baptist’s birth
was no different: “How can this be? I am an old man and my wife is advanced in
years” (Lk 1:18). Old age, barrenness and physical decline
apparently blocked any hope for life and fertility in these men and women. The
question that Nicodemus asked Jesus when the Master spoke to him of being “born
again” also seems purely rhetorical: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can
he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (Jn 3:4).
Yet whenever we think that things cannot change, the Lord surprises us with an
act of saving power.
The elderly as signs of hope
In the Bible, God repeatedly demonstrates his providential
care by turning to people in their later years. This was the case not only with
Abraham, Sarah, Zechariah and Elizabeth, but also with Moses, who was called to
set his people free when he was already eighty years old (cf. Ex 7:7).
God thus teaches us that, in his eyes, old age is a time of blessing and grace,
and that the elderly are, for him, the first witnesses of hope.
Augustine asks, “What do we mean by old age?” He tells us that God himself
answers the question: “Let your strength fail, so that my strength may abide
within you, and you can say with the Apostle, ‘When I am weak, then I am
strong’” (Super Ps. 70,11). The increasing number of elderly people
is a sign of the times that we are called to discern, in order to interpret
properly this moment of history.
The life of the Church and the world can only be understood
in light of the passage of generations. Embracing the elderly helps us to
understand that life is more than just the present moment, and should not be
wasted in superficial encounters and fleeting relationships. Instead, life is
constantly pointing us toward the future. In the book of Genesis, we find the
moving episode of the blessing given by the aged Jacob to his grandchildren,
the sons of Joseph; his words are an appeal to look to the future with hope, as
the time when God’s promises will be fulfilled (cf. Gen 48:8-20).
If it is true that the weakness of the elderly needs the strength of the young,
it is equally true that the inexperience of the young needs the witness of the
elderly in order to build the future with wisdom. How often our grandparents
have been for us examples of faith and devotion, civic virtue and social
commitment, memory and perseverance amid trials! The precious legacy that they
have handed down to us with hope and love will always be a source of gratitude
and a summons to perseverance.
Signs of hope for the elderly
From biblical times, the Jubilee has been understood as a
time of liberation. Slaves were freed, debts were forgiven and land was
returned to its original owners. The Jubilee was a time when the social order
willed by God was restored, and inequalities and injustices accumulated over
the years were remedied. Jesus evoked those moments of liberation when, in the
synagogue of Nazareth, he proclaimed good news to the poor, sight to the blind
and freedom for prisoners and the oppressed (cf. Lk 4:16-21).
Looking at the elderly in the spirit of this Jubilee, we are
called to help them experience liberation, especially from loneliness and
abandonment. This year is a fitting time to do so. God’s fidelity to his
promises teaches us that there is a blessedness in old age, an authentic
evangelical joy inspiring us to break through the barriers of indifference in
which the elderly often find themselves enclosed. Our societies, everywhere in
the world, are growing all too accustomed to letting this significant and enriching
part of their life be marginalized and forgotten.
Given this situation, a change of pace is needed that would
be readily seen in an assumption of responsibility on the part of the whole
Church. Every parish, association and ecclesial group is called to become a
protagonist in a “revolution” of gratitude and care, to be brought about by
regular visits to the elderly, the creation of networks of support and prayer
for them and with them, and the forging of relationships that can restore hope
and dignity to those who feel forgotten. Christian hope always urges us to be
more daring, to think big, to be dissatisfied with things the way they are. In
this case, it urges us to work for a change that can restore the esteem and
affection to which the elderly are entitled
That is why Pope Francis wanted
the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly to be celebrated primarily
through an effort to seek out elderly persons who are living alone. For this
reason, those who are unable to come to Rome on pilgrimage during this Holy
Year may “obtain the Jubilee Indulgence if they visit, for an appropriate
amount of time, the elderly who are alone... making, in a sense, a pilgrimage
to Christ present in them (cf. Mt 25:34-36)” (APOSTOLIC
PENITENTIARY, Norms for the Granting of the Jubilee Indulgence,
III). Visiting an elderly person is a way of encountering Jesus, who frees us
from indifference and loneliness.
As elderly persons, we can hope
The Book of Sirach calls blessed those who have not lost
hope (cf. 14:2). Perhaps, especially if our lives are long, we may be tempted
to look not to the future but to the past. Yet, as Pope Francis wrote
during his last hospitalization, “our bodies are weak, but even so, nothing can
prevent us from loving, praying, giving ourselves, being there for one another,
in faith, as shining signs of hope” (Angelus,
16 March 2025). We possess a freedom that no difficulty can rob us of: it is
the freedom to love and to pray. Everyone, always, can love and pray.
Our affection for our loved ones – for the wife or husband
with whom we have spent so much of our lives, for our children, for our
grandchildren who brighten our days – does not fade when our strength wanes.
Indeed, their own affection often revives our energy and brings us hope and
comfort.
These signs of living love, which have their roots in God
himself, give us courage and remind us that “even if our outer self is wasting
away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16).
Especially as we grow older, let us press forward with confidence in the Lord.
May we be renewed each day by our encounter with him in prayer and in Holy
Mass. Let us lovingly pass on the faith we have lived for so many years, in our
families and in our daily encounter with others. May we always praise God for his
goodness, cultivate unity with our loved ones, open our hearts to those who are
far away and, in particular, to all those in need. In this way, we will be
signs of hope, whatever our age.
From the Vatican, 26 June 2025
LEO PP. XIV
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